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Lot Essay
"A picture is nothing, it is a door that leads to another door... The truth we seek will never be found in a picture: it will only appear behind the last door that the viewer succeeds in opening by his own efforts." (Antoni Tàpies quoted in: exh. cat., New York, Guggenheim Museum, New York 1996, p. 36.)
For Tàpies, the wall and the door have always formed an important avenue of inquiry in his art. As physical divides between one space and another, walls and doors can be seen in mystic terms as representing a spiritual divide and it is primarily for this reason that Tàpies has always closely associated them with ideas of escape and freedom. In addition, like the surface of a canvas, the surfaces of walls and doors are open to attack in a wide variety of ways. From environmental and temporal damage to human marks made accidentally or intentionally in the form of graffiti or in the form of signage, the wall is an encyclopaediac record of information about the activities of life in a far more universal way than the surface of a canvas can ever be.
The artist's intention is to penetrate this mystery of life as catalogued on a wall or a door's surface by interacting with this innate nature. Penetrating and making impressions on the surface of a canvas is for Tàpies analogous to making a journey of exploration. Tied-Up Door of 1971 is one of the most powerful manifestations of the artist's life-long interest in this form. In this enormous canvas, the image of a door is imprinted into the heavy sand surface of the painting. Revelling in the textural surface of his materials, Tàpies creates a monumental image that because it is the form of a door, implies another dimension behind this solid divide. The possibility of opening the door and revealing what lies beyond is suggested by two wooden handles, but this is negated by their being tied together with string. In this way, Tàpies uses the textured surface of the painting to remind us of the artificiality of his image and reinforces the deliberate paradox that exists between the image, its metaphor and the artist's sense of the practice of art as a mystic journey of discovery.
For Tàpies, the wall and the door have always formed an important avenue of inquiry in his art. As physical divides between one space and another, walls and doors can be seen in mystic terms as representing a spiritual divide and it is primarily for this reason that Tàpies has always closely associated them with ideas of escape and freedom. In addition, like the surface of a canvas, the surfaces of walls and doors are open to attack in a wide variety of ways. From environmental and temporal damage to human marks made accidentally or intentionally in the form of graffiti or in the form of signage, the wall is an encyclopaediac record of information about the activities of life in a far more universal way than the surface of a canvas can ever be.
The artist's intention is to penetrate this mystery of life as catalogued on a wall or a door's surface by interacting with this innate nature. Penetrating and making impressions on the surface of a canvas is for Tàpies analogous to making a journey of exploration. Tied-Up Door of 1971 is one of the most powerful manifestations of the artist's life-long interest in this form. In this enormous canvas, the image of a door is imprinted into the heavy sand surface of the painting. Revelling in the textural surface of his materials, Tàpies creates a monumental image that because it is the form of a door, implies another dimension behind this solid divide. The possibility of opening the door and revealing what lies beyond is suggested by two wooden handles, but this is negated by their being tied together with string. In this way, Tàpies uses the textured surface of the painting to remind us of the artificiality of his image and reinforces the deliberate paradox that exists between the image, its metaphor and the artist's sense of the practice of art as a mystic journey of discovery.